This month, a new musical based on Joan Lindsay’s classic Australian novel Picnic at Hanging Rock has its world premiere in New York.

Featuring book and lyrics by Australian playwright Hilary Bell and music by New York-based composer, singer-songwriter and producer Greta Gertler Gold (who was born in the US but grew up in Sydney), it opens off-Broadway, directed by Portia Krieger, Associate Director of Fun Home on Broadway.

A performance of the songs from Picnic at Hanging Rock at the Lincoln Center. Photo © James Fideler.jpeg

Bell and Gertler Gold have known each other for 25 years, but first worked together in 2017 when the National Theatre of Parramatta invited Bell to write a one-person play based on Shaun Tan’s picture book The Red Tree.

Believing it should be a musical, Bell asked Gertler Gold if she was interested in collaborating. “We loved working together and we had a chemistry,” says Bell. “Her music really inspired me and I think my lyrics were helpful in writing the music.”

The production...